He turned to Eugenia. In that instant she had slipped the tattered dust-coat from her shoulder, thrown it over her arm, set her hat straight, and was calmly awaiting them with a self-possession and coolness that seemed to shame their excitement. He noticed, too, with the quick perception of unimportant things which comes to some natures at such moments, that she had plucked a sprig of wild myrtle from the mountain side, and was wearing it on her breast.
"Goodness Heavens! Genie! What has happened! Where have you been?""Eugenia! this is perfect madness!" began the elder man didactically. "You have alarmed us beyond measure--kept the stage waiting, and now it is gone!""Genie! Look here, I say! We've been hunting for you everywhere.
What's up?" said the younger man, with brotherly brusqueness.
As these questions were all uttered in the same breath, Eugenia replied to them collectively. "It was so hot that I kept along the bank here, while you were on the other side. I heard the trickle of water somewhere down there, and searching for it my foot slipped.
This gentleman"--she indicated Bray--"was on a little sort of a trail there, and assisted me back to the road again."The two men and the woman turned and stared at Bray with a look of curiosity that changed quickly into a half contemptuous unconcern.
They saw a youngish sort of man, with a long mustache, a two days' growth of beard, a not overclean face, that was further streaked with red on the temple, a torn flannel shirt, that showed a very white shoulder beside a sunburnt throat and neck, and soiled white trousers stuck into muddy high boots--in fact, the picture of a broken-down miner. But their unconcern was as speedily changed again into resentment at the perfect ease and equality with which he regarded them, a regard the more exasperating as it was not without a suspicion of his perception of some satire or humor in the situation.
"Ahem! very much obliged, I am sure. I--er"--"The lady has thanked me," interrupted Bray, with a smile.
"Did you fall far?" said the younger man to Eugenia, ignoring Bray.
"Not far," she answered, with a half appealing look at Bray.
"Only a few feet," added the latter, with prompt mendacity, "just a little slip down."The three new-comers here turned away, and, surrounding Eugenia, conversed in an undertone. Quite conscious that he was the subject of discussion, Bray lingered only in the hope of catching a parting glance from Eugenia. The words "YOU do it," "No, YOU!" "It would come better from HER," were distinctly audible to him. To his surprise, however, she suddenly broke through them, and advancing to him, with a dangerous brightness in her beautiful eyes, held out her slim hand. "My father, Mr. Neworth, my brother, Harry Neworth, and my aunt, Mrs. Dobbs," she said, indicating each one with a graceful inclination of her handsome head, "all think I ought to give you something and send you away. I believe that is the way they put it. I think differently! I come to ask you to let me once more thank you for your good service to me to-day--which Ishall never forget." When he had returned her firm handclasp for a minute, she coolly rejoined the discomfited group.
"She's no sardine," said Bray to himself emphatically, "but Isuspect she'll catch it from her folks for this. I ought to have gone away at once, like a gentleman, hang it!"He was even angrily debating with himself whether he ought not to follow her to protect her from her gesticulating relations as they all trailed up the hill with her, when he reflected that it would only make matters worse. And with it came the dreadful reflection that as yet he had not carried the water to his expecting and thirsty comrades. He had forgotten them for these lazy, snobbish, purse-proud San Franciscans--for Bray had the miner's supreme contempt for the moneyed trading classes. What would the boys think of him! He flung himself over the bank, and hastened recklessly down the trail to the spring. But here again he lingered--the place had become suddenly hallowed. How deserted it looked without her! He gazed eagerly around on the ledge for any trace that she had left--a bow, a bit of ribbon, or even a hairpin that had fallen from her.
As the young man slowly filled the pail he caught sight of his own reflection in the spring. It certainly was not that of an Adonis!
He laughed honestly; his sense of humor had saved him from many an extravagance, and mitigated many a disappointment before this.
Well! She was a plucky, handsome girl--even if she was not for him, and he might never set eyes on her again. Yet it was a hard pull up that trail once more, carrying an insensible pail of water in the hand that had once sustained a lovely girl! He remembered her reply to his badinage, "Of course not--if it were only a pail,"and found a dozen pretty interpretations of it. Yet he was not in love! No! He was too poor and too level headed for that! And he was unaffectedly and materially tired, too, when he reached the road again, and rested, leaving the spring and its little idyl behind.
By this time the sun had left the burning ledge of the Eureka Company, and the stage road was also in shadow, so that his return through its heavy dust was less difficult. And when he at last reached the camp, he found to his relief that his prolonged absence had been overlooked by his thirsty companions in a larger excitement and disappointment; for it appeared that a well-known San Francisco capitalist, whom the foreman had persuaded to visit their claim with a view to advance and investment, had actually come over from Red Dog for that purpose, and had got as far as the summit when he was stopped by an accident, and delayed so long that he was obliged to go on to Sacramento without making his examination.
